By Ted Shen
Neither Xiang nor Yang had heard Bach’s music before 1979, when the Cultural Revolution ended. But once Western music returned to Shanghai they began exploring it. When Yang got into the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in the late 80s he was required to minor in the piano, which meant digging into the vast European repertoire. “Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and even pieces by contemporary Chinese composers. And, of course, Bach.”
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Betty Xiang’s father was a renowned erhu soloist, and her grandfather also played the instrument in the canal city of Suzhou, not far from Shanghai. Near the end of World War II her father and grandfather formed the Peace Orchestra, divided into instrumental sections in the European style. “The imperial courts had their spectacular ensembles,” Yang explains, “but usually along the line of 300 musicians playing the same instrument.” The Shanghai National Orchestra, which flourished in the 20s, was more Western. It fell apart during the Japanese occupation of the city but was revived by the Communist regime in 1954, partly to fuel national pride. “My dad was a founding member,” says Xiang. “And there was enough job security for him to start a family.”
During these clandestine sessions, Xiang became one of her father’s best students. The erhu–a mainstay in Chinese music since the height of the Sung dynasty in the 11th century–is not difficult to learn. But really mastering it, making it sing with emotion, is another matter. Though its sounds are wide-ranging, they’re essentially melancholic. According to Xiang, an ancestor of the instrument was introduced to China in the eighth century by prisoners of war from central Asia. “The name, ‘two-stringed barbarian instrument,’ tells you that it’s of foreign origin,” she says. “In fact, most instruments whose names are two characters, like the yangqin and pipa, are not native to China.” Over the centuries the erhu was refined, and variations of it also became fashionable in Korea and Japan. It was standardized in the early 1900s–one reason that the erhu section in an orchestra could begin to play in harmony.
Yang moved on to his next mentor, someone his mother had heard about through a coworker. “My parents put their heart into me,” he says. “When the teacher came to our room for a lesson, my father wrote down everything he said, and my mother cooked and fanned us. They realized I was eager to learn.”
The Yangs thought about emigrating to Belgium or France, which they’d visited on tour and liked. But they were worried about those countries’ strict immigration policies. And Xiang had heard daunting stories of colleagues who’d settled in the Chinatowns of New York and San Francisco. “They worked in sweatshops so they could take out their instruments at night and play as if they were back in Shanghai,” she says. “It was depressing.” She was constantly told by friends who’d left, “You play Chinese music–why do you want to come here? What can you possibly do?” Still, the United States was the logical choice, says Yang, because his sister was living in Texas, going to graduate school in Arlington.
“To be frank, we didn’t expect to make so many friends in such a short time,” says Yang, who’s more gregarious than his wife despite his halting English. “I do most of the talking with them, but Betty is the one who makes the decisions.”
